The House of the Doctor
by NabikiB
Summary: The environmental accident that left all but two youngsters being babysat by the ship's AI dead on the surface far below couldn't have been foreseen. But the Doctor is always right where he's needed, however uncomfortable the decisions that come afterward might be.
1. Edits in Time

A hodge podge human crew of two adult females and several half alien kids on a jury rigged spaceship is doing their best to recreate something as close to their homeworld after Sol goes nova as possible. First the captain located several young yellow stars of about the same size and close to the same signature as Sol had been. Then their used automatic function sciences to terraform the surface of a barren planet they named simply, House. The environmental accident that left all but two youngsters being babysat by the ship's AI dead on the surface far below couldn't have been foreseen.

**The House of the Doctor**

This 'ship' was _easily _the most jury-rigged, barely put together thing he'd ever been on. Toolkits, diagrams, instruction manuals and parts were strewn all over the place, as if to say, 'We'll fix _what _we have to _when _we have to, but there's other jobs waiting.' The Doctor judged it needful to use the parts and tools _rapidly _repair no fewer than _fourteen different necessary systems _that were vital if simple fixes on the way to trying to _find _whoever or whatever was in charge ship's failing systems had been detected by the TARDIS, along with readings that suggested humans.

He found one of the 'crew' in the kitchen where she dropped a pan of flatbread on the floor when she saw him...and truthfully he wasn't in any better shape. No wonder the place was a wreck, this human was a _child_, a girl who was no more than ten, _if _she was that old. She certainly wasn't old enough to have been taught to perform proper ship's maintenence.

"But...you're not _real_. You're just a character on the DVDs...so..._right_. Sleep, I need to go to bed now. Damn it, why can't the best guys be real?"

She steadily refused to look at him again, cleaned up most of the mess and then left the kitchen. She was so rattled by him she skipped picking up the pan of bread.

"People who don't exist shouldn't show up outta nowhere, even if I _am _a bit tired." She muttered as she moved past him, only to freeze as he put his hand out to stop her.

"DVDs? I assure you, I'm very much real, child."

"Can't be. Been drifting around for years ever since my parents got killed in a terraforming accident when I was six and Tommy was two months old, and if you were real, you'd been here before now cuz _you _wouldn't leave kids to hang like this. So you're not." She insisted with the logic of any young child. She looked up at him. "I have to believe that, see? So you're just...an imaginary friend. I'm still young enough to have one, right?"

The Eighth Doctor sighed at the waves of emotion coming from the youngster. "I just crossed into this universe, young one. First thing the TARDIS detected was this...ship. We came right away." He brushed a bit of hair from her eyes.

She shivered under his hand and he crouched down to pull the child into his arms. To this highly empathic version of the Doctor, what this child needed, more than any one single thing, _was an adult in charge_. It was very clear she knew who he was and suddenly he was very glad that of the two distress signals he'd received, he'd followed this one. He knew the woman on the other ship would die from the decision, but when the TARDIS sensors had detected _children _alone on a derilict vessel he felt he had to go to the children. He could not save both ships, but this one at least, while it badly needed repairs, wasn't in any danger of crashing.

Where's your little brother?"

"The AI is watching him nap. He's four, he needs naps. I had to nap when I was four."

"I think...it best if I see to the repairs this ship needs first."

"So...can the TARDIS take over the computer systems? There's lots wrong but I haven't bothered with cuz I dunno how, Mister Doctor."

"It's just Doctor."

"You're a grown up, right?"

"Yes."

"So it's mister Doctor cuz it ain't right for kids to call grown up people by firsties."

When put _that _way... He sighed and nodded. At least the child was polite.

"_Alright_." The first thing he did was to let the TARDIS know that the 'owner' wanted an adult in charge of them and the timeship in charge of the derilict's computers. "Let's get your little brother and put both of you on the TARDIS. She and I can gather what is useful but I don't expect much. And then she and I will take you _elsewhere_."

"Will there be running?"

"Not this time, I don't think. You are both _far _too young for it."

"_Awwww_...please?"

"No."

"_Pretty _please?"

"I think not. Now, let's get that pan of bread off the floor...good thing it landed rightside up, very odd to watch you clean the kitchen, but leave the pan on the floor, by the way...and get you two resettled in my ship...who has all her parts and functions correctly." He tried not to smile as she huffed her disappointment and felt his immediate future split. One way was still being recalled. The other, with these children, was not. He made his choice, gathered the girl into his arms and felt the line that led to war fall away. "You've domesticated me, you know. Your brother is _terribly _young...and yet I find myself raising the pair of you." She'd known too much about that other future, he supposed, so he'd been given a choice that included a future she knew nothing of. Even with a time war on, Time Lines must be preserved where _possible_. When it was not possible, it was needful to allow a new direction to form.

He felt the impact of the _other _self on the _other _timeline as the TARDIS went to rescue the _other _ship and crashed soon after, but beyond that he could sense nothing. He supposed he'd regenerated on that timeline. He shifted the TARDIS back across the void until that one's war could be completed, then, with the last crack, he went back. There was no real need to be alone in his head.

No matter. In this timeline, the war was long over and except for a pair of children with very busy heads which constantly came up with new things to get into and more trouble to cause...and that was just on the TARDIS, he could only hear himself, in various places. Only, it was elders on the other timeline he heard...not this him on this one. The Eighth knew himself well and the implications of that made him shiver, even as he reached out to contact the self he wasn't...not anymore. He was and he wasn't, that other Doctor and there were differences enough for them to be able to keep both selves from being so utterly _alone _with an isolated mind.

The other answered...of course he did...how could he not? He reminded himself of the self that had split away to rescue the children...

"That is the self that I am, and I am different enough from you that we can both live in the same universe."

"How different?"

"I've been domesticated...by two humans under ten years old and only one is female. The other is a four year old boy...and she's whining because I told her that almost ten is too young to take as a companion, let alone four...so I adopted them instead."

_"Domesticated?"_

"Willingly."

"Are you sure you're not just ill and feverish?"

"Positive."

"Well, it's better than being alone, but still...ICK."

"Nonsense. We've always loved teaching and the very young minds of these kids are very receptive. Join me?"

"My version of your TARDIS said you're skirting some very sticky science...but she sees nothing untoward. My companion's name is Rose Tyler. Beware her mum...Jackie slaps. Hard. Which one are you?"

"Eight."

"Yes, then, I'll join you...you've got a ship with all her parts."

"In that case, yes, bring her here so we can repair her. We'll meet you in bay four." He was already ushering the girl into said bay, with the toddler draped over his shoulder, sucking his thumb in his sleep.

A moment later the girl's head came up at the squall of the other self's arriving TARDIS. One look at that Self had her squealing in excitement. "THAT'S the you on the DVDS!"

The girl's shouts scared her sleeping brother who woke in the arms of a stranger, then started crying.

"Um. Sorry." She told him as he re-arranged the lad and exerted his strong gift of empathy to soothe him...and his other self as well...broadcasting to the boy ensured that the _other _listening mind received it too. The elder relaxed a bit though the lad was more stubborn. Finally the girl, Rose, shook her head and simply took the little boy away from him. She jiggled the boy a bit and started singing softly to him. It took her less than two minutes, total, to get him calmed and wipe his face.

"See, that's your new daddy. And this is your new Uncle. And I'm your Rose, a new big sister for both of you, okay? Between us, you have a new family, alright?"

"Rose."

"Yes, Doctor?"

"You get to explain to your mum how she suddenly got two more kids..._that I'm raising_...in two forms at the same time."

"Well, when you put it that way..." She grinned at her big-earred version, then turned to the girl and said, "I'll be your new mum if you want one. Then you'll have two daddies instead of just one. Best part of that, is that the Doctor can explain how I'm with two of him and made her a granny at her age."

"OI! That's not what I meant!" He cussed in Gallifreyan when he found her ignoring him...himself ignoring Eight's raised eyebrow at his particular uses of certain concepts.

"I can do that. It's better to be adopted so that we go do neat stuff together, than you wanting to do something stupid, like going to see your dad die or something else equally dumb...and _risky_. Bet she slaps him silly, though."

"OI"! The grumpy, northern version protested. "Wasn't once enough?"

"I'm not gonna take that bet, not no _way_, not no _how_." Rose replied, grinning. "Best if we introduce your's first. She's a sucker for men with hair like that." That simple she told the other Doctor her mum's address. "Let's see if this you can manage to land where you intend to...or not."

"Oi! Rose, I'm not _that _bad." Ten complained. "Haven't missed the last three in a row."

"You would have though. I just asked the TARDIS if it was okay if you showed me some of those places you were talking about or if I should put on work clothes instead...cuz you told me she was the person who was really in charge, yeah? So, I asked your boss."

"OI!" Both Doctors exclaimed, insulted. The little girl was laughing in glee, knowing exactly what Rose was talking about.

The Tenth felt his timeline shift with the girl's quite accurate statement about _dumb _things to go see. Something dangerous had been prevented. He arched an eyebrow as he recalled the squalled words that had woken her brother.

"DVDs?" He had a bad feeling about this, particularly when the little girl cast her own big blue eyes...prettier than his by far...up and batted her eyes at him. Oh yeah, this wasn't going to end well.

She ended up insisting that Eight watch the DVDs. All of them, since they were the other Doctor's Timeline, not his...and one of them should know. The expression on his face when he was done was something else. "You had the entire series." He glanced at Tenth. "She was right, one of us needed to know, so we can scramble the order of things without touching the fixed points...so she, who has the entire series memorized, doesn't have a Time Lord's...never mind two, _exact _personal future in her little head."

"Yup."

"From First...whom we share, by the way, all the way through mine, but his me, not me-me..."

"Yup."

"Through the next self and that him and Rose."

"Yup."

"And then next him and Rose."

"Yup"

"And on to the next him _and _next him..."

"Yup and yup."

"All the adventures, all the companions, fixed points, general universal disasters and all the little moments between."

"Yup."

Both Doctors sighed, then Ten commented. "She's got a good working knowledge of this me and the next four mes...and also of Rose...and from what I can tell, several other people."

"Yes, she does. And of this me as well."

"She's been teaching her brother."

"Most likely, he's _usually _with her."

"She's gonna teach Rose all about us."

"Um, she already has. She left off your bits and those after, but I spent days watching it when you two were sorting out Verat 4 since the atmosphere precluded human involvement...and I needed something to do. You were _so _cute when you were Second. Small and adorable, really." Both Doctors rolled their eyes and sighed.

"This is Chara being helpful?"

"Yes, but don't worry...she doesn't stay helpful long at a time. She and her little brother like to explore the ship and regularly gets into things they must needs be got out of."

_"Why?"_

"She calls it 'training'...for when it's _her _turn to go wandering off."

"Yeah, _that's _not good." Groused Rose's version.

**~*~TBC~*~**


	2. How Could He Have Known?

_**02**_

_**How Was He to Have Known?**_

He groused, grumbled, muttered curses under his breath, wiggled a bit further in and _down_, mumbled something _utterly _unfit for young ears and eventually worked his way down a TARDIS ventilation shaft to where they were. He supposed, by the giggles that answered his muttering, that the children didn't mind. Eight had been entirely correct, they had got into something, or rather, _somewhere_, they had no business to be within hours of his arrival. Eight's shoulders were a bit too wide for this job and Jack's wider still...so it was up to him to get down to where they were with Jack's vortex manipulator and bring them out again.

"Why did you have to explore this part of the TARDIS?" He reasonably wanted to know.

"Cuz Mama said you spend lots of time in tubes and stuff and we figured we best get used to it." The girl told him quite seriously.

Her brother nodded and stated...remarkably clearly given he had his thumb in his mouth, "S'training."

The Doctor sighed, rather proud of himself for not blistering the air mauve with his language choices. Instead he scooped up his new son and told him to hang on tight, took his daughter by her small hand and used his thumb to press the powerswitch.

Eight caught him by the shoulder as he stumbled over his own feet in the console room of the younger TARDIS, righting him and took the boy from his shoulder, putting the four-year old lad on a stool nearby with the admonishment to _stay _there. Neither form of the Doctor expected it to last long, but the child stayed put for the moment.

"How could we have ever guessed that being domestic was this dangerous?" The elder form demanded. "I thought it was supposed to be boring! _Rose _is not as jeopardy friendly as our new children...and that's saying something!"

"Oi!" Rose protested. "They're perfectly normal human children. All kids tend to get into all sorts of stuff...that's how you can tell they're normal!"

"Yes, well...how could we have known avoiding domestic situations as we have?"

She quirked an eyebrow at both of them, lifted the lad to her hip and took the lass by the hand. "For all your collective smarts," She told them, "Has it occurred to you two self-proclaimed geniuses just how I knew they were up to sommat?" She asked snidely before leading the kids to the kitchen to feed them lunch.

"Oi!" Both of them groaned at the half-arsed insult. "We _are _geniuses!" Eight added in a near shout down the hallway after her.

"Prove it!" She called back in a mocking sing-song voice and both of them heard the children's laughter. "Figure out how I knew! How I always know! How any female human...and at least half of the males, would KNOW."

"Half?"

"Some fathers are clueless." She answered her daughter. "Like your two new ones. Fortunately, they can be trained, though. Or at least, Eight can...dunno about my first Doctor."

"We don't get away with much with Uncle Jack, either."

"Well, your Uncle Jack has been around kids, younger siblings and the like...so he knows how to tell."

"How come Uncle Jack didn't come?"

"Oh, too much muscle across the shoulders. My Doctor was the only one skinny enough to fit...I mean, the TARDIS _could _have adjusted the size of the shaft, so I have to wonder why she _didn't_."

A distant OI from the direction of the console room drifted after them, leaving the two girls, older and younger, grinning.

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><p>The Eighth Doctor wondered, as he did frequently these days, just exactly how things had come to this. He didn't mind, really, for they were too adorable for words at times like this. A nudge at his elbow had him turning to take the camera from Rose and smiled broadly. Really, his other self couldn't be let to get away with <em>that <em>without proof later on. Seven cats and kittens, two small children and one pajama-clad Time Lord sound asleep on the library floor. In one big pile.

Eight quietly snapped the picture.

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><p>Rose was going to have his head, either or both of them, he was very sure. Locking eyes with his counterpart was more than enough to tell Ten that Eight agreed with him on that count. They turned their eyes back to the very brightly colored pair who had somehow managed to turn the water in the wading pool that the TARDIS had provided into dye...and many shades, hues and colors of dye at that. It changed, remixing on their skin and in their hair as they had moved through it, played in it, splashed and paddled in it...just as though it were the original water. Even their eyelashes were a mixed up swirl of color, not many of the individual lashes were the same color, either. The large white towels the two Time Lords were using to dry them off were both turning into something that looked tie-dyed.<p>

"Two minutes. We counted...we quite deliberately used our abilities and kept strict time, _two _lousy minutes...how do they do things like this that fast?" Eight complained as he herded them to the little table near the pool, so brightly colored that they nearly glowed, and the supper trays that the two men had gone to fetch.

"No idea." Ten answered. "That's not the big question...the big question is how do we get them cleaned up before she comes in here?"

"You don't." Came Rose's voice behind them. She moved forward to glare from the two Doctors, to the two youngsters to the pool. "How did this happen, Doctors?"

"No idea." They said in unison.

"I swear Rose, it was _water _when we went to get the trays!" Ten told her.

"You left these two alone for?"

"Two minutes, precisely...we kept track." Eight whined.

"With the Luck of the Doctor tossed in, one of you should've stayed and the other should've made two trips. There's no help for it now," She silently asked the TARDIS to guide her mother to this room...maybe Jackie would have some idea how to get that stuff off them.

"GOOD GOD, what have those children been in?" Jackie screeched from the door, causing both Doctors to immediately hide behind her daughter.

"It's not our fault, how was I to know that two really _small_ human children were more jeopardy friendly than your daughter?" Ten asked.

***TBC***


	3. Welcome To My Lives

**Summary: This is a _wild _chapter that belongs in two different stories at the same time...it also belongs, properly, in The House of the Doctor, but because Variations grab Moments and drag them out piecemeal for a bit of special focus, it goes here too. HOWEVER, it will only be posted in this series. The next House chapter will have the full compliment on board.**

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><p><strong>03<strong>

**The House of the Doctor**

**Welcome to My Lives  
><strong>

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><p>The Elder Doctor was beginning to appreciate, though until the kids he'd have <em>never <em>imagined it, _Jackie_, of all people. She settled down once the whole thing was explained to her, though not without smacking both men on the back of their heads a few times over the course of the linear week it took them to get the dyes off the children. Their clothes were a lost cause, though. It wouldn't have been too bad if it hadn't been for those new set of memories he and Eight had gotten two days ago...and couldn't lose no matter how hard they tried to correct that particular 'edit' in their Sixth life.

After lunch, while the adults were discussing possible safe ways to remove the dyes, the kids had dumped every stitch they'd worn in their Sixth life into the wading pool. This wasn't the problem, it was the choice of location for this project that wasn't good, since the Sixth would 1. Notice and 2. was still using them...which was in the part of the TARDIS where he had been _during _his tenure. What was worse was that was where the kids stored it...in the old console room he'd had back then...where the other clown suit had still been stored...they simply swapped them out.

To the children, it was just a place to hide the nifty stuff they had changed so utterly, from the clothes formerly worn by their First body, all the way to Seventh...and in Ten's case, Nine...he was fairly certain that the Warrior version wasn't going to be amused. He mentioned this to Seventh...just as they all heard a rant getting closer...from the direction of the old console room he'd used during the war.

Eight also entered, moaning a bit at the state of his cravats.

"Nailed you, did they?"

"_Every_ single cravat...and you really don't want to know what they did to my waistcoat." He sighed, shaking his head.

"Who are these knaves?" Second wanted to know, his waistcoat having had the color removed and then treated with dye as well as the rest of his outfit. He _wasn_'t happy...and for once, he and Third were in solid agreement. _That _was the scary part, really..._those_ two himselves finding solid, common ground like that.

"Our _children_, Second. Adopted, but still our children...as in, Children adopted by his and my versions." Ten sighed. "Which is why they're always into some form of mischief, of course. Oh, yes...and our wife is on board...we are both the Doctor, but from slightly different universes...so we can co-exist."

"We use both versions of our TARDIS by turns, the kids live on both as does our wife, Rose and our mother in law." Eight added.

_"Mother in law?"_

"Yes, her name is Jackie."

"You...you're...bless me! You've domesticated us!" Second yelped.

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

The younger self stared at him in shock, unsure whether the changes to his signature outfit in the Sixth body was the worst news or the new information that he had his _family _on-board. He turned, a bit frightened honestly, to Third. "What do we do now?"

"I have no idea, me. Not at all." He glared at their elder selves. "_Domesticated_?"

"Yes. And very human, on top of that, human plus, actually, since Rose isn't aging, but still."

"Dear me." Seven interrupted to look around, "Where's Ace?"

"With Jackie...and if I were you, this would terrify you as much as it does us...they're getting along like houses." The grumbling War Doctor informed them as he walked past with Rose. "At least I know where Bad Wolf got that delightful template from." He was interrupted by the sound of a trio of opening doors from the most newly arriving versions of his TARDIS.

"Bad Wolf? What the devil?" Yelped Eleven, Donna at his side. "You lot aren't supposed to know about that yet!"

"Too right." Twelve sighed, Amy and Rory standing just a bit to one side of him. "What a _mess_."

"That's certainly _one_ word for it. We've both got a version of Clara on board, Twelve." Thirteen paused, looked behind him. "No, seriously, stay in there, we don't need Reapers taking over the shop, Clara."

"No it's okay, I don't know who you're talking about. I've got the Ponds with me, just now."

"Oh, well...in that case, come on out then." Thirteenth told his young friend. "This me doesn't know you yet."

"Of course you do, just not linearly. I was still _fixing _you back when you just had the Ponds."

"True."

All of the Doctors stared at Clara. "Okay, lads, there's another lady that keeps us out of trouble...and that makes one for everyone, plus the wife." First told them. "And Susan's gone off somewhere with Barbara and Ian, as well.

"Wife?" Thirteenth asked. "_What_ wife?

"Well...it's like this..." Nine started hesitantly explaining why they weren't on the old timeline at all, but rather, instead, on the new one made so that a little girl and several boxes of DVDs didn't decide What Was To Be.

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><p>"So, since we were each taken out of a different universe," Thirteenth finished, "Each and every single one of us originated in a different timeline from the rest of the rest of us...do I have that right? Because that's how you set up the pattern?"<p>

"Well, yes." Eight confirmed. "It means none of us are alone in our heads, subject to Gallifrey or unmarried...and it means we'll all be co-parenting the kids...at the same time."

"Oh. Dear...it also means, me...that all of our companions are _all_ current...all at the same time. We should probably separate them." Fourth pointed out.

Rose had been leading the kids back toward the showers, covered in mud...and she paused. "Too late. The TARDIS decided to combine all her parts and said something about having enough pilots for once...and a full ship's compliment for the first time in your lives. She's so happy she's nearly giddy, can't you hear her? She loves being this full."

Thirteen slack-jawed faces raised to the ceiling, listening to the happy burbling giggles given off by the ship...

"We're in _so_ much trouble." Thirteen told First.

"Yup." Eleven's Clone told them from the hallway door. "When she said full compliment, she meant _all _of us, lads. She grabbed the version of Sarah Jane that _I _married."

Fifth stared at himselves helplessly and finally just sank to his butt on the floor of the pool area, letting his shoes and lower breeches sink into the pool while he tried to wrap his mind around this new reality and allowed himself the luxury of having hysterics, it wasn't as if there weren't enough of him to handle emergencies, after all...every head turned when he lost it, maniacal giggles breaking loose until he rolled into the pool and had to be fished out.

"Children and dye are a _dangerous _combination, Mes." Eight told them solemnly. "Just look what's happened to us."

"You? Just think of the poor universe, all of you together like this all the time." Jackie corrected as she entered the area. "No wonder poor Rose wanted help with you lot, but that's alright, you daft thing...I've got this. I've got a new husband to help out, too."

**_"Aw crap."_** Was all Thirteenth said as Jack Harkness stepped forward to say 'Hello'.

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><p><em><strong>~TBC~<strong>_


End file.
